Aleo (ALEO): what it is, how it is mined and with which ASIC miners

Aleo (ALEO) is a privacy-focused blockchain: it verifies transactions and programs using zero-knowledge proofs (zkSNARKs), so the network knows a computation was performed correctly without seeing the data itself. Miners on Aleo are called provers, and their ASIC miners generate proofs for the so-called coinbase puzzle. Since August 2025, the ARC-46 rule also applies: only those who also have enough ALEO locked (staked) receive a reward. At an exchange rate of around USD 0.05 (as of 18 Oct 2026), mining only comes out positive with the most efficient machines and cheap electricity.

Summary

• The Aleo mainnet has been running since 18 Sep 2024. Blocks are confirmed by validators (Proof of Stake); provers solve a computational puzzle and receive part of the new coins for it.
• Aleo was mined on graphics cards only at the beginning. Since 2025 the network has been dominated by Goldshell (AE Box, AE Max) and IceRiver (AE0, AE3) ASIC miners.
• Because of ARC-46, a prover must hold stake for every accepted solution. The requirement rises every quarter: from 31 Oct 2026 it is 1.25 million ALEO per solution per epoch.
• At today's exchange rate and with cheap hosting electricity, only the IceRiver AE3 (1.7 J/MH) and the small AE0 cover their costs. The Goldshell AE Box and AE Max both lose money, and at a household price of around CZK 5/kWh no machine comes out ahead.

What Aleo is and what it is for

Aleo is an independent layer-1 blockchain. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, where balances and transactions are public, Aleo can run programs privately. The user performs the computation locally and sends the network only a short proof that it was done according to the rules. This is the principle of a zkSNARK (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge).

Programs for Aleo are written in its own language, Leo. The goal is applications where privacy makes sense: payments, identity, voting or DeFi without disclosing balances. Development involves, among others, the company Provable, author of the ARC-46 proposal.

Inflation is set to decline. Around 12% in the first year, falling to 2% by the tenth year. Coinbase puzzle rewards (i.e. for miners) decrease by 10% each year until the ninth year, when they stabilise. Validators receive a fixed reward of 23 ALEO per block.

How Aleo is mined: provers, puzzles and zkSNARKs

Aleo combines two types of participants. Validators with a stake of at least 10 million ALEO confirm blocks in the AleoBFT consensus. Provers, i.e. miners, solve the coinbase puzzle: they generate cryptographic proofs, and if a proof meets the target difficulty (proof target), the network accepts it and the prover receives a share of the reward. The puzzle changes every epoch, i.e. every 360 blocks.

Unlike Bitcoin, the machine does not compute hashes “in the void” here. Hashrate is quoted in MH/s, but it means the number of attempts to solve the puzzle per second. The heavy computation consists mainly of multiplying large numbers on elliptic curves – exactly what specialised chips are suited for.

From graphics cards to ASICs

In the testnets and the first months of mainnet, Aleo was mined on graphics cards. At network launch, the foundation reported over 100,000 GPUs, typically RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT cards. In early 2025 the first ASIC miner, the Goldshell AE Box, arrived, and within six months the network hashrate rose roughly fivefold, from about 500 GH/s to more than 2,500 GH/s. Since then, graphics cards on Aleo cannot even cover their electricity.

ARC-46: no stake, no mining

Since 1 Aug 2025, proposal ARC-46 has applied. In each epoch a prover may only submit as many solutions as its stake covers. The network rejects solutions above this limit. In practice, this means a machine's hashrate is wasted without enough locked coins. The project's goal is for provers to stake at least a third of all ALEO after two years.

A small miner cannot put up such a stake alone. They therefore mine through a pool that provides the stake itself or via partners and reflects this in its fee or payout share. Terms vary from pool to pool, so compare them before connecting your machine.

How much Aleo mining earns today

We don't have live data for Aleo as we do for Bitcoin or Kaspa, so we give our own calculation as of 18 Oct 2026. Starting point: according to WhatToMine, on 17 Oct 2026 a Goldshell AE Max (360 MH/s) mined 37.5 ALEO a day, i.e. about USD 1.92. That corresponds to roughly 0.104 ALEO per 1 MH/s per day. We converted the other machines by hashrate, at USD 1 ≈ CZK 21.5.

The amounts are gross, before the pool fee and without stake limits. CZK 5/kWh corresponds to a typical household tariff; CZK 1.13/kWh is currently the cheapest location of our ASIC miner hosting. The table shows the main point: efficiency decides. The AE3 needs 1.7 J per 1 MH/s, the AE Max over 9 J. At the same electricity price, the AE3 makes money and the AE Max loses it.

The ALEO exchange rate is also very volatile. On 17 Oct 2026 it jumped 40% within a day to USD 0.064 and fell 20% the next day. Market capitalisation is around USD 97 million, so even modest trading volume can move the price significantly.

Which ASIC miner to use for Aleo

There are two families of machines on the market. Goldshell started with quiet “boxes” for the home and continued with the industrial AE Max. IceRiver came out with the very efficient AE0 mini-miner and, at the end of 2025, the powerful AE3.

The Goldshell AE Box and version II are compact (about 20 × 15 × 10 cm, 2.3 kg) and quiet, and can also be controlled via Wi-Fi. With consumption of around 10 J/MH, however, they cannot even cover cheap electricity today. The AE Max is a 3.3 kW industrial machine with an Ethernet connection that requires a data centre.

The IceRiver AE3 is currently the most efficient machine for Aleo. It runs at around 45 dB with an operating temperature of 0–35 °C. With a power draw of 3.4 kW it belongs in a data centre or hosting, not a flat. Don't mix them up: the AE3 is a zkSNARK (Aleo) miner. The IceRiver AL series is for Blake3 and the Alephium coin.

All of these machines can only mine Aleo. If the network changes the puzzle rules, the machine stands idle until the manufacturer releases new firmware. That is exactly what happened in March 2026 – details in our news piece Problems with Aleo ASIC miners.

Pools and wallets for Aleo

Aleo mining takes place practically only through pools. Aleo is supported by F2Pool and DXPool, for example. Since ARC-46 was introduced, some pools and manufacturers also offer their own staking services (Goldshell launched its own on 1 Dec 2025). We describe how payout methods differ in our article PPS, PPLNS and FPPS.

1. Create a wallet that supports Aleo and back up the recovery phrase offline.
2. Choose a pool and check how it handles stake under ARC-46 and what fee it charges.
3. In the miner's web interface, enter the pool address (stratum), your address or pool account as the user, and the machine name.
4. After 20–30 minutes, check on the pool's page that the hashrate matches the machine's label.
5. Only download firmware from the manufacturer's official website. “Unofficial fixes” from forums can steal hashrate.

Risks of mining Aleo

• Rising stake. The ARC-46 requirement will rise to 2.5 million ALEO per solution by July 2027. Large players with capital have the advantage; small miners depend on pool terms.
• Exchange rate and liquidity. ALEO currently trades at around USD 0.05. In summer 2025 it was around USD 0.30–0.40. Earnings in koruna can therefore change by tens of per cent within a few days.
• Protocol changes. Any modification of the puzzle can temporarily knock machines out until manufacturers supply firmware.
• Single-purpose hardware. An Aleo ASIC cannot be switched to another coin. When mining stops paying off, the machine's resale value falls too.
• Centralisation. Stake, pools and machine production are in the hands of a few companies. This is common for a young network, but it is good to be aware of it.

Aleo is a technically interesting project, but mining today is more for those who have cheap electricity and accept the risk. Nobody can guarantee a profit.

What next

• ASIC miner profitability – a live comparison of machines for Bitcoin, Kaspa or Litecoin, recalculated every hour. A good benchmark for what Aleo competes with.
• ASIC miner hosting – locations and electricity prices from 1,13 Kč/kWh. For machines like the AE3, it is the only way to access cheap electricity from the Czech Republic.
• Problems with Aleo ASIC miners – what happened after the protocol update and how to proceed.

Sources

• Aleo: Aleo Mainnet is Here (launch 18 Sep 2024)
• Provable: Introducing ARC-0046 – stake schedule for provers
• Aleo: tokenomics and rewards
• WhatToMine: Goldshell AE Max earnings history